Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Human Touch in a Digital World: Rich Smith's Vision for Travel Nursing | Staffing Series

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The Human Touch in a Digital World: Rich Smith's Vision for Travel Nursing | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:25
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today's guest is Rich Smith, Co
0:31
founder and CMO of Atlas Med Staff.
0:33
They are the largest veteran owned traveling nurse company in
0:37
the country. They operate from their
0:39
corporate headquarters in Omaha, NE.
0:43
They have a highly experienced internal staff that spans over 4
0:46
decades staffing all nursing specialities.
0:49
That experience has given them the unique ability to form a
0:52
company based purely on their internal staff, their contracted
0:56
nurses, and their client hospitals.
0:59
They believe in a flat business model that rewards hard work,
1:02
honesty, integrity, and dedication.
1:05
They are the deep end of the pool, which is to say that this
1:09
is not the place to play it safe or relax in an office.
1:13
This is the place to go if you want to do something big.
1:16
Now before we jump into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:20
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1:24
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1:47
Now back to our guest today, the Co founder and CMO of Atlas Med
1:51
staff, Rich Smith. I appreciate you making the time
1:54
Share your story today. You made me sound very good.
1:56
Thank you so much. I'm I'm happy to be here.
1:59
All right, so let's jump in. Before you started Atlas Med
2:03
staff, I see you had some successful sales roles for big
2:06
companies like TD ameritradeandgiftcertificates.com,
2:11
which have nothing to do with staffing or travelling nurses.
2:15
I'm curious how this transition came about.
2:18
It, it was a chance meeting, honestly.
2:21
So, OK, so you have to go all the way back to when my oldest
2:25
daughter was three months old, she got influenza A and I had to
2:31
take her to the, to the pediatric ER here in Omaha at
2:34
the Children's Hospital. And I met a traveling nurse who
2:39
took care of my, who took care of my daughter.
2:41
And honestly, she probably took more care of me because I was, I
2:44
was, I mean, she was three months old.
2:46
I was a new dad. I was frantic.
2:48
I had no idea what to do. Couldn't get her fever down.
2:50
She wouldn't stop crying, like I didn't understand what was going
2:53
on. And she took more care of me, I
2:56
think, than she did Riley. And from that stuck with me.
3:00
And I was at TD Ameritrade at the time.
3:02
It was just Ameritrade back then.
3:04
Good Lord. And my boss had my boss, the guy
3:08
they brought in to run corporate sales had left a year before to
3:12
start a travel nurse organization here in Omaha.
3:15
And he called me and, you know, a few months later and he's
3:19
like, Hey, Rich, we're doing this thing.
3:21
It's called travel nursing. I think you could do this.
3:24
It's kind of sales kind of, but I think you could do this.
3:27
And that whole story and, and the woman that helped my
3:31
daughter came flooding back to me.
3:33
And I'm like, I, I think I have to like, I think this is
3:37
something that that I'm destined to do.
3:39
And it was weird at the time because I loved Ameritrade.
3:42
I love financial services, I love the world that we live,
3:45
that we worked in everyday and the people I worked with.
3:48
But this just seemed right. And, and so there you go.
3:52
So I went and did that and I haven't looked back since.
3:55
It's, it's, it's, it's been a crazy ride.
3:59
But I love the healthcare professionals that we work with
4:02
now and that I've worked with over the years.
4:05
And I wouldn't trade it for anything.
4:07
And so when your old boss called you to join the company, was he
4:12
bringing you in as a partner? Was this Atlas Med staff?
4:14
Or was this a waste? Stop before you started Atlas
4:17
yourself. No, this was Medical Solutions.
4:19
So Scott Anderson was his name. It was him and another partner.
4:23
The other partner owned an IT company.
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Scott had, Scott had purchased a very small per diem staffing
4:30
company. Per diem is like daily staffing
4:33
for hospitals, but they wanted to turn it into travel nursing.
4:36
And if you know anything about Omaha, Omaha is the hub of
4:39
travel nursing in the country. There's a, there's a couple of
4:42
us, it's Cincinnati, Boca Raton, FL and San Diego outside of
4:47
Omaha that are like the hubs for travel nursing.
4:49
And, and, and so he was starting a travel nurse company.
4:52
So that's, so I, I started the medical solutions, my goodness,
4:56
when they had like maybe 5 to 10 travelers, totally nurses
5:00
working for them. They're a multibillion dollar
5:03
agency now, but I started way back then.
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What is it about Omaha, NE that has sort of attracted to these
5:12
types of companies? There was a couple of things.
5:15
One, we were always telemarketing Omaha.
5:18
We don't necessarily have an accent.
5:20
Others may tell you differently, but we don't necessarily have an
5:22
accent. And so back before overseas
5:25
telemarketing and that type of thing, it was it was the
5:28
Midwest, it was Omaha and we had quite a few here.
5:31
The other reason was there was a very large company here named
5:34
Arias, and Arias started off as an allied health company,
5:38
staffing radiology and physical therapy and that type of thing,
5:43
but then grew into travel nursing too.
5:45
And so multiple offshoots from Arias happened over the years.
5:49
In fact, my business partner Steve Ryan started it at Aureus
5:53
like fresh out of the military and, and, and that's how, that's
5:57
how he eventually came to medical solutions and we met and
6:00
then started and then really grew Atlas together.
6:05
And so is it Steve that has the military experience or both of
6:09
you? No, just Steve.
6:10
Yeah, just Steve. He was, he was military desert.
6:13
I always get this wrong. It's Desert Shield or Desert
6:15
Storm and he always corrects me. It's one of the two anyway.
6:19
Yeah. But yeah, he worked on F
6:21
fourteens. I, I've, I've heard the stories
6:23
multiple times. And he was, he, he was all over
6:28
the all over the country. He was in Las Vegas and then he
6:30
was, he was in New York and Alaska.
6:33
But yeah, he's been all over. He was all over the country with
6:36
the military. And then once his time was up,
6:39
the GI Bill was there. He went to college and then and
6:42
then joined Arias as a as a recruiter.
6:45
Well, hats off to Steve for his service.
6:47
Thank you. Yeah.
6:48
So, OK, so you're working for this company and then at some
6:51
point you guys decide to start Atlas on your own.
6:54
What was the thought process there?
6:56
Yeah. So it was I, and I'm sure we'll
6:58
talk about this more later on, but I had, I had helped grow
7:03
medical solutions from almost nothing to over 500 travelling
7:08
healthcare professionals working for them.
7:11
And I was a client manager, I signed a number of their
7:14
contracts. And I sometimes have a bigger
7:17
mouth and I don't know when to stop.
7:19
And it's just, it's just who I am.
7:22
And the company was going in a different direction than I
7:25
really, I really liked. And so I found my way out of the
7:29
company. They they terminated my
7:31
employment. So I had the opportunity then to
7:34
start Atlas. And so that's where that came
7:37
from. OK.
7:40
And you said you assume that we'll talk more about it later.
7:43
What? What's the deeper sort of
7:45
conversation to have there? That's one of those vulnerable
7:48
moments, like when you, when you, you know, it can you admit
7:51
like, well, I, I got in my own way, in so many different ways,
7:56
Like I was, I was my own worst enemy.
7:58
And, and, and, but it turned into what one of the best things
8:03
that ever happened to me. It made me realize in my late
8:06
30s that, you know, I, I didn't know it all, but I, I, I, I knew
8:11
there was something better and I knew I could be something
8:14
better. And that's what kind of launched
8:16
me into that. That and my very supportive wife
8:18
who had a who was very successful in her career, that
8:22
could support us during a startup for a number of years.
8:26
Do you want to give more voice to what happened there at the
8:30
previous employer that sort of led you to find your way out, as
8:33
you put it? Oh, sure.
8:34
Yeah, there were, there's two different ways our industry is
8:37
going and it's been that way for a number of years.
8:40
And it's, it's, it's very, you're either very, very
8:43
automated and you know, you're doing everything right here, You
8:47
know, on like Amazon, there's a, there was a tech revolution
8:50
happening even back then, 12 years ago, there was a tech
8:53
revolution kind of happening in our industry.
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Or you could be even more hands on with the, with the nurse,
9:00
with the, or the tech or the, you know, the traveller at the
9:02
hospital is taking care of patients.
9:05
And I always believed in that in that end user, that person.
9:08
And they were going one way and I was going the other.
9:11
And, and so that, that, that's, that's why it ended, quite
9:15
honestly. Not to say that their, their
9:17
method is wrong. There's a lot of good companies
9:20
out there that are very transactional that do that.
9:23
I just believe there's a better way.
9:24
I believe Target's a great place to shop, but Macy's is a great
9:28
place to shop too. And I believe that's that's what
9:31
we have created with with Atlas is kind of the the Macy's of of.
9:35
Travel, healthcare, Macy's just being a more upgraded experience
9:40
for everybody involved. White glove, more hands on,
9:43
absolutely understanding your customer.
9:46
If you've ever shopped for any kind of like luxury item like
9:49
that Lexus or a luxury watch or you know, or something like
9:53
that, there's that higher level of service that you just come to
9:57
expect. And that's that's what we sell
10:00
at Atlas at that higher level, that white glove service.
10:05
White glove for for both your nurses as well As for your
10:09
clients. Yeah, absolutely.
10:11
Yeah. And that's that one of the
10:13
things that has kind of carried through with us, we don't have
10:16
our own and we can get into details MSP, so managed service
10:20
provider like I'm not, I'm not working directly with anyone
10:24
hospital system, I work with everyone.
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So I'm never going to lose a nurse to a different company
10:31
that has that relationship because I have to pay them a
10:34
percentage. But I'm going to be the very
10:36
best that I possibly can when it comes to that nurse and when it
10:40
comes to their compliance package, like how they look on
10:43
paper and when we present them to the hospital, how they look
10:46
to them. You know, Rich, I talked with a
10:50
lot of founders who build up a pretty sizable and successful
10:54
company and then remain involved.
10:57
Most of them will retain the title of, you know, CEO or
11:00
president. I see you list your title as
11:03
CMO. Do you think of yourself as a
11:05
marketer first? Absolutely, Yeah.
11:09
I, Steve is the reason why Steve and I work together so well is
11:14
because he has a marketing degree and I don't have a
11:17
degree. He is, he is very comfortable in
11:19
spreadsheets. I'm very comfortable doing stuff
11:22
just like this. And, and, and it's the exact
11:26
opposite. I can't stand spreadsheets.
11:28
He does not like talking in front of people, even if it's
11:30
like this. He didn't even want to talk on
11:32
the phone. Like if he's he's up, he's on
11:34
vacation this week. We've talked maybe twice on the
11:37
phone, phone, we've texted a lot, but he just, he's not
11:41
comfortable doing that. And so my role in the company is
11:45
definitely outward facing. So everything that you see from
11:48
Atlas, from our YouTube channel to our Facebook presence to our
11:51
LinkedIn presence to our TikTok account is, is me.
11:56
That's, I'm the, I'm the one driving that because that's what
12:00
the world sees and that's what I want.
12:02
I want to be able to control what they see about us and
12:05
control that message. So I want to talk more about
12:09
your approach to marketing, but I want to sort of dive into
12:13
something that you just said there.
12:14
You said Steve has the marketing degree, you do not.
12:17
So did you not go to college? I no, I did not.
12:21
No. Steve has a finance degree.
12:22
I'm sorry. Yeah, if I said.
12:25
Maybe I misheard that. OK.
12:27
No, I did not. Here's the thing, college was
12:30
not for me. High school probably wasn't even
12:32
for me either. And you can kind of tell my, my
12:34
backed up here. I'm a nerd at heart.
12:37
And and it was, it was super hard in high school to be a
12:41
nerd, but my, my world was Batman and you know, in Star
12:47
Wars and Masters of the universe.
12:49
And and so it was, it was very difficult to, to fit in.
12:54
But then college, college just wasn't for because I'm not good
12:58
at taking tests either. I'm really good one-on-one, but
13:02
I'm not good at taking tests. And so no, I do not have a
13:04
college degree. I grew up in a small town, small
13:07
town Kansas. I'm a KU, I'm a, I'm a Jayhawk
13:12
at heart. If I have one regret, and I only
13:15
have one through everything through, through a failed
13:18
marriage and you know, you name it, I'm, I'm over 50 years old
13:22
now. My one regret is I never went to
13:25
the University of Kansas. And that, that was that that's,
13:29
that would be like, like, like it for me, but college wasn't
13:33
for me. I would have failed there too.
13:36
And and so. So no, I I do not.
13:39
So this is interesting and I think this is a great story for
13:43
other people to hear. You know, folks who struggle in
13:46
high school, maybe not super popular, right?
13:49
You know, I heard you say you were a nerd back then.
13:51
Being a nerd now is is is got a cool edge to it in a lot of
13:55
cases. Right.
13:56
Can you believe it? Like, yeah.
13:58
But back then it it was hard, probably ostracized, little bit
14:03
isolated, right? Yeah, it's kind of hard to go to
14:06
school each day. And and now look at you, you
14:09
know how how many nurses do you have placed?
14:12
We're well over 1000 travellers nationwide, nursing and allied
14:16
health both. Our allied health division has
14:18
grown considerably this year. We're very heavily heavy in
14:22
nursing still though. But yeah, well over 1000.
14:25
You know, at the pandemic, we were, we were close to 2000
14:28
working for us nationwide. So and then internal staff of
14:32
like 200 people too. So it's it has come a long way.
14:37
So walk me through what that bridge looked like, right?
14:41
You didn't go to college, struggled in high school.
14:44
How do you get from there to to where you are now?
14:47
Yeah, so my dad was a college, was a high school dropout He but
14:51
that dude worked harder than I think anybody I've ever seen in
14:55
my entire life. And and I learned a lot from
14:58
him. And I think the biggest take
14:59
away from that is you don't have to have a college degree.
15:04
You don't have to have rich parents.
15:05
You don't have to, you know, all of those things that might,
15:09
might be, you know, the, the, the path to success.
15:13
If you outwork every one of them, you will succeed.
15:17
If you're, if you're the first one there in the morning and
15:19
turn the lights on and make coffee and you're the last one
15:22
there to turn the lights off at the end of the day and wash the
15:24
coffee pot out. By the way, dude, that's, that's
15:26
important too. That's my, that's my, one of my
15:28
biggest office pet peeves is, but I do that.
15:31
That's my job even to this day, like I'm the receptionist at our
15:35
office. So we're a, you know, we're a
15:38
multi $1,000,000, you know, 100 million, two $100 million
15:41
company. I sit at the receptionist desk
15:43
and I always have. And there's a reason for that
15:46
because if you see me doing that job every day, if you see me
15:51
sweeping the floors, picking up trash, letting my, my best
15:54
friend is the mailman and the FedEx guy and the UPS guy like
15:58
those, I like it when they come in every day.
16:01
I want to talk to them. If you outwork everyone else,
16:05
you will succeed. Everything else is completely
16:08
irrelevant. I love it.
16:11
The the Co founder of a $200 million company is making
16:16
coffee, cleaning out the coffee pot and is the receptionist.
16:20
Yeah, this is this. Is a.
16:21
This is a bit of a different approach.
16:23
I unplugged a toilet at the office the other day.
16:26
Right. I mean, it wasn't me, but, but
16:28
no job is beneath you. If something needs to be done,
16:30
you do it. That's just that, that there's
16:33
nothing that you shouldn't be doing.
16:36
And you mentioned how your dad was a high school dropout, but
16:40
the hardest worker you knew. I'm going to guess that's where
16:42
that work ethic came from, was watching him and having him
16:45
instill those values in you. Yeah, and he surrounded himself
16:49
with people just like him. Small town Kansas.
16:51
There's a lot of people like that.
16:52
There's a lot of people with. I always, I always say that my
16:55
dad would be embarrassed of my, my desk hands.
16:59
I have very soft desk hands. He would be embarrassed at at,
17:03
you know, at the lack of calluses on my desk hands.
17:06
That's funny. OK.
17:08
So let's go back to the the marketing component and tell me
17:12
about sort of the special approach that you take to
17:15
marketing at Atlas. Yeah, I realized early on it was
17:20
more a necessity than anything. Facebook in the very beginning
17:23
was free. LinkedIn was free.
17:25
And so that when we started Atlas in 2012, that was before,
17:30
you know, Facebook really exploded and, you know, paid
17:34
marketing and all of that kind of it has changed over the
17:37
years. But it was all free.
17:39
And then Instagram was free after that too.
17:41
And the best way for me to get our message out there is to turn
17:46
the camera on, on my, my eyesight camera here on my
17:48
MacBook or turn my phone around and record myself, you know,
17:54
just this is what we do and this is how we do it.
17:57
And, and I could, I could share it on Facebook and it didn't
18:00
cost me anything. I didn't have any money anyway.
18:03
In the beginning. It was, it was, you know, a
18:04
start up. So that's kind of where that
18:07
came from. So I learned I watched more
18:10
YouTube videos than I can possibly imagine.
18:12
Good, bad. Otherwise, like there's a,
18:15
there's a ton of knowledge out there.
18:16
You've got to be able to kind of sort through, OK, what's the
18:18
good stuff? What's the bad stuff there or
18:21
useful stuff versus non useful stuff?
18:23
They're on, you know, and and how does this apply to what I
18:26
do? I still do it to this day.
18:30
I claimed like, OK, my early mentors were were Gary
18:33
Vaynerchuk and Mark Cuban. And now it's yellow tux guy from
18:38
the Savannah bananas. And yeah, that guy's that guy's
18:42
fantastic. But you know, and he still just
18:44
walks around the ballpark with his phone like this.
18:48
And I, I just, there's something so, so just just like perfect
18:54
and simple about what he does. I I'm proud to do it everyday
18:57
like I just did, like I did 12 years ago.
19:00
I had another guest on a couple months back, a guy by the name
19:04
of Sean Walcheff, and he's in the restaurant industry and he
19:09
coaches the exact same thing to restaurant owners.
19:12
He's like, take out your phone, turn on record, show people what
19:16
you're doing and post it. And like, I could see how that
19:21
would be helpful in the restaurant industry, right?
19:23
Like, hey, look at us. We're making the salads.
19:25
We're, you know, getting the meats ready.
19:27
Like this is kind of what it's like behind the scenes.
19:29
You know, come down and and, you know, have dinner tonight.
19:32
Tell me why this same kind of approach was helpful in Atlas.
19:38
Because we will never, never as we will rarely meet the people
19:42
that we employ. So we have, we have healthcare
19:45
professionals in all 50 states working right now at, at, at
19:48
hospitals. They'll never come to Omaha, NE.
19:51
I may never go to Parsippany, NJ and meet them, right.
19:56
I may never go to Reno, NV. I kind of want to, but I mean I
19:59
may never go to Reno and meet them.
20:01
They meet me this way. And so I have a direct
20:04
one-on-one connection with them. It's funny.
20:07
Can I curse on your show? Is that OK?
20:09
Is that OK? We have a product that we do
20:12
every week called Free Shit Friday, and we just give away
20:15
stuff. Sometimes it's like our logoed
20:17
stuff, sometimes it's gift baskets.
20:20
You never know. But that's a way that we
20:22
connect. On Tuesday, I say, OK, this is
20:25
what we do. All you got to do is tell me
20:26
like or post a picture of your dog or tell me your favorite,
20:31
you know, restaurant that you eat at.
20:33
And then one of our guys puts them into a randomizer, picks
20:37
them out. We pick out winners and then we
20:38
send them whatever, you know, if it's our swag or, or whatever
20:41
else, we send it. But it's a way for us to
20:43
connect. And I've learned so much about
20:45
our travellers that way. Like the ones that love beer,
20:48
the ones that love red wine, the ones that you know, love horror
20:51
movies or you know that that type of thing.
20:53
I've learned so much as if I was sitting right across for them
20:57
having a meal. Never met them before in my
20:59
life. And so tell me a little bit more
21:02
about the content. What, what is the video?
21:04
Are you sort of promoting nurse life?
21:07
Are you talking about beer and wine?
21:10
All the above. So, and that's a that's an old
21:12
Gary Vaynerchuk thing is like nobody wants to talk about what
21:15
they do at work all the time and then they don't want to go home
21:19
and then anyone wants content about that.
21:22
So one of the examples is we have a, we had a beer podcast
21:25
that ran for 256 episodes called a beer with Atlas and our
21:30
travelers, our nurses all across the country would go to
21:33
breweries and they would send us beers like in cans that they got
21:38
from that brewery. Then we would record it, we
21:40
would open it, drink it, talk about it, talk about the label,
21:43
talk about, you know, the, the name of it or whatever.
21:47
For 256 episodes, we had a success.
21:50
We had an award-winning podcast just about our nurses going to
21:54
breweries and sending us beers. And people in our in our
21:58
industry at first were like, are you insane?
22:01
Yeah. It sounds like this is a crazy
22:03
idea. It's.
22:04
Crazy you're recording, you're drinking beer at the office at
22:07
11:00 on the Tuesday morning and recording podcast.
22:11
You would not believe the number of our travellers that listen to
22:14
that and thought and said, you know what, I don't even like
22:17
beer. But I think this is fun and I
22:18
think it's because we talk about the region or we talk about, you
22:23
know, all business. And there was so much more than
22:26
just the beer itself. Sometimes the beer was, you
22:28
know, not even secondary. It was, you know, it was an
22:31
afterthought to, to the conversation.
22:34
We also have, you know, multiple pieces of content too, about
22:37
what our nurses do or what our travellers do when, when they're
22:41
on a contract. So whether they, you know, they
22:43
travel in an RV and that's where they live when they're on a
22:47
contract, maybe they travel with pets.
22:49
What do you do? You know, if your dog gets sick
22:52
and you're, you know, you're 3 states away from your vet, what
22:55
do you know, where do you go? What do you do?
22:57
Take care of him, that type of thing.
22:59
But yeah, there's a lot of industry specific content that
23:03
we produce too. There's a running podcast now,
23:07
one of our most successful ones called Atlas All Access, where
23:10
we just talk about the industry, that's it.
23:13
And you get a lot of information about that.
23:15
So it's a little bit drier. I much prefer the the beer with
23:19
Atlas or Wino Wednesday or free shit Friday and you know, fun
23:23
things that we do like that. But I also understand I have a
23:26
responsibility back to our industry to, to share knowledge
23:31
that you know, over the past 20 plus years now that I've been
23:35
doing this. So do you think the the more fun
23:38
podcast, the more fun content, you know, drinking the beer,
23:41
having the wine is geared more towards the travelling nurses
23:44
and the industry one is more towards, I don't know, your
23:47
peers or your clients. Yeah, it depends it and it
23:52
honestly depends on the type of year too.
23:54
Normally around tax time, one of our most popular pieces of
23:58
content is how do I find my, how do I find my, find my tax
24:02
documents in it was ADP. Now it's, it's Paycom.
24:07
Like how do I find those tax documents?
24:08
What do I do with them? How do I, I'm not a tax
24:11
professional, but I can certainly help you point, I can
24:14
help point you in the right direction to a, a, you know, a,
24:18
a tax specialist that, that deals with temporary work, gig
24:22
economy, that type of thing. And so every year kind of comes
24:25
back around to that same sort of thing.
24:27
I, we found our, our hospitals, like our contacts that at the
24:32
hospitals that we work with, listen to all of it.
24:35
There isn't necessarily anything that they don't and it, it's
24:38
fun. Some they listen to it because
24:40
it's fun, some because it's informative and it gives them a,
24:43
you know, a, a, a interesting view into their employees lives
24:48
that they wouldn't otherwise see.
24:51
So in your industry, you kind of have a, a dual sales process,
24:54
right? You need to sell and attract to
24:57
the nurses and you need to sell and attract to the places that
25:00
need the nurses. How much of your success on
25:04
either side do you think you can attribute to, you know, your
25:07
digital content, the podcast, the social media posts,
25:10
etcetera? It it's definitely on the
25:11
traveller side. It's, it's on the, it's on the
25:13
nurse and the the tech therapist side for sure.
25:17
As much as the other side is aware it's it is a way for us to
25:21
connect with those travellers that we would never meet
25:23
otherwise. And what's the secret sauce for
25:27
establishing the relationships with your clients?
25:31
I think part of it is authenticity is there's a lot of
25:35
there's a lot of, we have a couple £800 gorillas in our
25:38
industry right now and they operate as that and you know,
25:42
they, they, it's no secret cross country, American mobile IA,
25:46
the, the 1st 2 are publicly traded.
25:48
So they're very much on, you know, CNBC and you know, that
25:51
type of thing where and IA is just a very large, large
25:55
company. That's it.
25:56
That is very well run, but isn't, isn't public trade at
26:01
all. But they share a lot of data
26:03
online, whereas we're the more like I want to say mom and pop
26:08
is not the way to to explain it. It's more just like, look, we're
26:12
the we're a little bit different in the ways that they aren't.
26:17
We're going to give you that extra attention that maybe they
26:20
don't have the margin for, if that makes sense.
26:25
So all this content that you're creating, are you able to
26:29
measure the ROI on it? Is that important to you?
26:33
That's a fun one for Steve for sure, because as much as my
26:36
brain doesn't need that, his brain does.
26:40
I don't measure ROI as much. I measure ROA return on
26:45
awareness. Do you know who we are?
26:48
Are you familiar with my logo? Are you familiar with the Atlas
26:52
adventure that you get when you take a contract with us for the
26:55
first time? We send you on a on an
26:57
adventure. We ask our recruiters will ask
27:00
you, is there something you want to do in Albuquerque, NM, if
27:05
that's where your first contract is that you've never done
27:07
before? And maybe it's you know what?
27:09
I really want to go see Coldplay at, you know, or whatever, you
27:13
know, when they play here or I want to go to an NFL game in
27:16
Phoenix when because I'm a Cardinals fan, we'll send them
27:21
to go do that. And that doesn't come out of
27:23
their pay. That comes out of our side.
27:25
And and so that I think that's one of those differentiators
27:28
that that that really sets us apart from everybody else.
27:32
And it goes back to that, that sort of Macy's white glove
27:35
experiences, those conversations that our our recruiters are
27:40
having with our travellers from the beginning about who they
27:44
are, what they do, what they like.
27:46
And OK, let's find something that makes that makes your
27:50
experience that much better. You're not going to notice an
27:52
extra dollar a week on your pay, a dollar an hour on your
27:56
paycheck, But you're going to remember when you go on that hot
27:59
air balloon ride at the Hot air Balloon festival in Albuquerque,
28:03
NM that happens every year. And it's unbelievable.
28:07
You will always remember that, and you'll remember that that we
28:10
sent you there. It's clear that there's a a fun
28:17
and playful side to you and the brand.
28:22
And before I go on with some of my other questions, I want to
28:25
kind of highlight what we're seeing in the background there.
28:27
Go back to kind of your nerdy days in high school and and show
28:30
me what's back there. Yeah, So, OK, so come back and
28:35
go back in time with me. When I was three years old, my
28:37
parents ran movie theatres. That was that was.
28:40
And when I was three years old, I saw Star Wars and I remember
28:43
it like it was yesterday, like I was 3 and I still remember it
28:47
and so. OK, so there's this is Masters
28:50
of the Universe right here. He man and.
28:53
Man, yeah, that's he man. But then, here's all this is All
28:57
Star Wars over here? And these are all still in box.
29:01
Still in the package. Yeah.
29:02
In fact, I just. This is super nerdy, but I don't
29:07
mind sharing. So Mattel when they sold, when
29:11
they when they finally, well, no, it was Hasbro, wasn't it
29:13
Hasbro? No, it was Mattel, Mattel
29:15
archives. So Mattel kept one of each when
29:20
they produced it and when they closed, and I believe it was in
29:24
Ohio, I think close to where you're located, when they closed
29:27
their archives a number of years ago, they sold these off.
29:31
And so this is a, it's a, this was the Mattel, the one that
29:35
they kept. And it, and it, it has a sticker
29:38
on the top, like not for sale. Like you'll see this sticker
29:41
here and this sticker here. It's not, it wasn't supposed to
29:44
be for sale. It was in their archives.
29:46
So they always had it and they sold them all off.
29:49
And so I have. I have two of these actually.
29:51
Should I ask how you came to put your hands on them?
29:55
I friends Facebook, like I, I'm fairly good at social media
30:01
after all these years. And so I have made a lot of
30:03
friends through social media and yeah.
30:07
And so that's how I ended up with this one with a lot of
30:11
these actually. Now, do you have any of them
30:13
that you allow yourself to take out-of-the-box play with them?
30:17
Do you interact with them or is it more of a a collector sort of
30:21
a thing? I like to have them in mint
30:23
condition. I love the art.
30:25
The package art to me is is unbelievable.
30:28
I look at here, this one over here.
30:30
Let's see, so the very first GI Joe I ever bought was barbecue
30:35
and I just, there was something about this package art to me
30:38
that that when I was a kid, probably 8 years old, that
30:41
really spoke to me. So, so now I have one in in the
30:45
package with the package arts and you know, you can look on
30:48
the back and I remember when we were kids, like we would mark
30:50
them off as we got them, you know, you know that type of
30:53
thing. So.
30:55
A little checklist for you. Yeah, so once again, now, now it
30:59
all makes sense, right? Why I didn't succeed in high
31:01
school There you. Go well.
31:03
But like you said, I, I think we're also hitting upon what has
31:07
led to you being so successful. You're really good with people,
31:10
right? You're you're good in this
31:11
interaction and you'll outwork anybody.
31:14
You'll out hustle. There's no job that's beneath
31:16
you. You're unclogging toilets,
31:19
you're cleaning out the coffee maker, You're the receptionist.
31:22
Yeah, I, I think a lot of valuable lessons here.
31:24
You know, as people start to grow their companies, sometimes
31:27
they get maybe like a little above that kind of a stuff and.
31:32
Yeah, and there isn't anything that you that you should ever,
31:37
that isn't my job. Should never come out of your
31:39
mouth. It's never come out of my mouth.
31:41
And if it does, I I've been abducted by aliens or something.
31:45
Yeah, that would be the telltale sign.
31:47
There you go. So what are the growth plans
31:50
going forward, Rich? Our industry went through and
31:54
I'm with the pandemic through some pretty dramatic changes.
31:59
We were on a very nice growth trajectory.
32:01
Anyway, the pandemic slammed things to a halt and then
32:06
accelerated them as fast as faster than all of us could
32:10
possibly imagine. And then once that was done,
32:14
hospitals realized, Oh my goodness, we spent so much money
32:18
that we, we've got to stop like, and the first thing to end is
32:21
contingent labor. Is, is, is, is temporary staff.
32:25
It's coming back around now. So we're, we're kind of
32:28
reliving, we're, we're, we're going through what we went
32:31
through in O8O9 with the financial crisis all over again,
32:35
but even more dramatic, our industry is going to grow over
32:40
the next couple of years. We're going to grow out of the,
32:43
you know, the downturn that we're in right now.
32:46
I, I joke with Steve that we both turned 50 this year.
32:50
I turned 50 in June. He just turned 50 a couple of
32:53
days ago. And I'm like, I, I finally found
32:57
something I'm good at. I don't think I ever want to
33:00
leave. I want to keep doing this.
33:02
Now, my wife will want me to retire at some point and I get
33:06
it. But I don't think I ever want to
33:08
stop hearing the stories of our travelers or understanding who
33:11
they are or why they do what they do.
33:14
That's really, that's my oxygen every day.
33:16
Is, is, is their stories. And, and you know what, why they
33:21
do what they do, why they leave their families or their homes
33:24
and they go, you know, for three months or six months or nine
33:27
months out of the year to a completely different state and
33:30
work in a completely different hospital, you know, than the one
33:33
just down the street from them. Why did they do that?
33:37
I, I love those stories and I, I don't it'd be tough to leave
33:41
something like that. Tell me more about why this
33:45
model specifically of travelling, because it does seem
33:47
like it would create extra expense and extra strain on the
33:51
employees. For sure, and it does in a lot
33:54
of ways that it has, you know, especially we've seen over the
33:58
years when I started at Medical Solutions 20 years ago, the
34:01
average age of a travelling nurse was kids are out of
34:06
school, husband's probably retired or getting close to
34:09
retired husband or wife, you know, either way.
34:12
It was very female driven back then so it was much older, so
34:16
40s to 50s somewhere in there. What we're finding now though,
34:20
is that has changed considerably.
34:22
The average age of a travel nurse or travel therapist is
34:26
somewhere in their late 20s out of school, both male and female.
34:31
So before marriage, before you know that before kids, maybe
34:36
they, you know, maybe they have a dog and that's their
34:39
commitment. And, and they'll, they'll pretty
34:41
much go anywhere. The money's pretty darn good for
34:45
them. And that's, that's part of the
34:47
the reason why hospitals have realized, especially because of
34:51
the pandemic, that it is more cost effective to hire a
34:55
traveler at A at A at a higher rate for three months instead of
35:00
trying to hire a perm person, a permanent staff for an entire
35:05
year, but only needing them for that three months worth of time.
35:09
So. What are the circumstances in
35:12
which a hospital may only need somebody for three months?
35:15
Pregnancy there's, you know, nurse goes down with a broken
35:20
leg or you know that any there's any number of things that that
35:24
might happen there. There could be the new hospital
35:28
opens and they they're trying to open a pediatric wing and, you
35:32
know, to really take control of in that city of the, you know,
35:35
the pediatric nursing population or the, you know, healthcare
35:38
population. So they'll bring in extra, extra
35:41
help for that. We're seeing a lot with with
35:43
hurricane relief right now on the coast.
35:46
They're going to bring in temporary staff to help out
35:49
there. So Rich, I'm hearing your story,
35:54
guy that works really hard hustles has built this, you
35:58
know, great successful business, really comfortable on camera.
36:01
You seem to me like a guy who's got it in control, like a a calm
36:06
cool cucumber. Is that how you would describe
36:08
yourself? No.
36:10
No, no, no, absolutely not. No, no, no, I struggled.
36:14
I struggled terribly with anxiety.
36:16
I always have. And maybe that goes back to high
36:19
school. I don't, I don't know where it
36:20
came from. Mental health is, is kind of one
36:24
of those undiagnosed things in our country right now that I, I
36:27
think we need to. I personally would love if we
36:30
focus more on that. My son has special needs.
36:33
We, we adopted our son from Russia when he was 14 months old
36:38
and he has special needs. He struggles.
36:40
He struggles with mental health issues and he's a great kid.
36:45
He's an he's an awesome kid. But there are things that I
36:48
just, I simply do not understand about, you know, why his brain
36:51
works the way that it does. And maybe that's why he and I
36:54
are as close as we are, because I don't understand why my brain
36:57
works the way that it does sometimes.
36:59
Why I'm just, I'm paralyzed with fear in, you know, in some
37:03
scenarios it, it takes a lot for me to get on an airplane.
37:07
It takes a lot for me to not be the driver of a car, which is
37:11
ridiculous. I need to be in control, you
37:14
know, in, in those kind of scenarios.
37:16
And so, so no, I, I'm very comfortable right here,
37:20
one-on-one with you doing these types of things.
37:22
But yeah, in life, I, I, I have, I have struggled a lot with,
37:26
with anxiety. So you mentioned a couple of
37:30
things. Being on an airplane in a car,
37:34
you need to be the driver. Would you sort of put most of
37:39
the anxiety that you run into under sort of an umbrella of
37:42
lack of control, or is that not accurate?
37:47
I think, I think that's accurate, not control like I
37:50
need to like, like my ego makes me control it.
37:55
It's I'm not in control of myself.
37:57
And if I can't control, if I can't control myself and what
38:00
I'm doing at that time, that's, that's when I struggle when I
38:04
have to rely on somebody else. And maybe that goes back to that
38:07
work ethic. Like, you know what, I'll just
38:08
do it. Let me take care of it.
38:11
I'll do it instead. I don't need, I, it's hard for
38:14
me to relinquish control to someone when I know, you know
38:18
what, I'll just, I'll take the extra time and I'll do it myself
38:21
at the neglect of maybe something that's even more
38:23
important. I'll still do it.
38:26
And maybe that's a, maybe that's a character flaw, I don't know.
38:30
But it's interesting. I mean, a lot of business owners
38:32
sort of have this inability to sort of shift gears from startup
38:36
mode where they're wearing all the hats and doing all the
38:39
things. Clearly to some degree you've
38:41
been able to do that. To be able to grow such a big
38:44
company and you get 200 internal staff, like it seems like your
38:48
role would have to have changed through that process.
38:51
You know, what's funny about that is I realized that I'm, if
38:56
I'm the smartest person in the room, we have a problem.
39:00
And I, I'm very, very comfortable saying that out loud
39:05
and saying like, I realize you're so much better at this
39:09
than I am and I can give you control of that piece of
39:12
whatever that is. I'll still be involved.
39:14
Like I'm still 100% involved in, you know, you know, this is as
39:19
of recording right now, it's Friday at 3:00 and I can't wait
39:22
to get back in to. OK, where we at for the week?
39:25
How many travelers have we place?
39:26
Where are we at with extensions like that type of thing?
39:29
But I absolutely trust the people that I've put into those
39:32
positions because they're good at their job and there's they
39:36
are smarter than me at that and I'm totally fine with that.
39:41
So have you tried anything that has helped with the anxiety?
39:46
Medication, supplements, meditation.
39:49
I don't know, breathing exercises.
39:51
Yeah, I wish I could sit still long enough to meditate.
39:55
I can't. No, I and medication didn't
39:59
necessarily work for me either. I couldn't.
40:01
I could never find anything that worked, unfortunately.
40:03
So I just kind of live with it. Yeah, I just kind of live with
40:07
it. You know, I've had similar
40:10
conversations with a number of business owners and we've tried
40:13
to sort of unravel this thread of like, why is that anxious
40:17
feeling there? Like what purpose is it serving?
40:20
And I've got an interesting theory that it's almost like the
40:23
little engine that keeps us moving forward, right?
40:27
Because there's this uncomfortable feeling here.
40:29
What do I do? Well, I want to get away from
40:31
it. So how do I get away from it?
40:33
Will I take a step forward into some kind of action or activity?
40:37
And so it it could be that this anxiety is uncomfortable as it
40:40
makes you feel in your skin. It's a big reason that you are
40:44
as successful as you are, because you're always sort of
40:47
pushed to move forward, to get away from that thing and do
40:50
something else. Yes.
40:52
Is that land true at all? I think that's 100% true.
40:55
I have AI have a quote on my AT, at my desk there at the
40:59
reception desk, they're at the office from Mark Cuban that says
41:03
work 24 hours a day like someone's trying to take it all
41:06
away from you. And that, that drives me right
41:09
there. I, I, I have great relationships
41:12
with our competitors, with the other owners that are our size
41:16
in the industry and even some of the larger companies too.
41:19
But I will, I will bleed to work harder than them.
41:23
And regardless of how much bigger they are, like I will, I
41:26
will do everything I possibly can to outwork them.
41:30
You know, one of my favorite questions to ask, I think you
41:33
already touched on part of it is, you know, tight labor
41:35
market, hard to retain and hold on, you know, hard to recruit
41:40
and retain good folks. What are you guys doing that you
41:44
think works? I mean, you talked about like
41:46
the hot air balloon rides. But you know, tell me a little
41:49
bit more about your approach. As our industry continues to go
41:53
in those two separate directions, I want to force the
41:56
issue on our side even even more.
41:58
So as much as you can do a lot of what you want from your
42:02
phone, it's still, I've used this example a lot and I've used
42:07
it on stage with some of our competitors that are very, who
42:11
I'm very good friends with that are very online that are very,
42:15
you can do this kind of thing yourself at 2:00 in the morning.
42:19
If you're an ER nurse and you get stuck with an HIV positive
42:22
needle, the IVR system that the phone call that you make is not
42:27
going to understand what just happened to you and, and how
42:30
scared you are. But your recruiter will and
42:34
that's what we offer. So that's the difference.
42:37
And you can do a lot of the, the menial tasks on the front end,
42:44
the uploading your documents, uploading your license, you
42:47
know, in your, in your, you know, any of the compliance
42:50
documents, you can do that on your phone right now in a very
42:53
secure way. But your recruiter is your
42:56
lifeline. Your recruiter is the person
42:59
that understands what you're going through every single day.
43:02
And there are some companies that don't have that.
43:04
And then there's there's us and other companies like us too.
43:08
And I'm going to continue pushing as hard as I possibly
43:10
can towards that human connection that because the
43:14
further the more we do here, the more we lose this, the more we
43:18
lose that human connection. I don't want to lose that.
43:22
Is that why? I mean, I don't know what
43:24
typical industry ratios are, but when you tell me you've got, you
43:27
know, maybe 1000 nurses in the field and you've got 2000
43:30
internal staff, it seems like that's a lot of internal staff
43:34
to support. 202 hundred internal staff.
43:38
I'm sorry, 200 and yeah, it could be yes, yeah, it totally
43:43
could be. But we do all of our own
43:45
internal payroll. Like one of the one of the cool
43:47
sexy things to do right now is offload your payroll offsea
43:51
overseas to you know, to A to a company that isn't located in
43:54
the United States. One of the other cool sexy
43:57
things to do is offload your compliance to you know, to a
44:01
company that is overseas. We still do all of that in
44:04
house. I still have a, a person either
44:07
in Omaha or you know, somewhere in the United States that
44:11
reviews every single one of your documents to make sure that not
44:15
only is it, are you compliant, is it exactly what they need?
44:18
But then it's like, it's still viable, like you're OK.
44:21
Your expiration date is June of 25.
44:25
In May of 25, we're going to start contacting you here this
44:29
way to tell you, OK, this is going to expire.
44:32
But then you know the next month it's going to, we're going to
44:35
have a live person on the phone. Your, your Acls, your BLS, your
44:39
license is going to expire. You need to get that renewed.
44:44
Well, and I hear you saying how much or how important the
44:47
personal touch is to you, right? You can do the menial stuff with
44:51
the technology, with the phones, with the apps, but like the
44:54
example that you used where, you know, a nurse got stuck with an
44:57
HIV positive needle, they, they need to talk to somebody.
45:00
And so I, I would guess that's where, you know, having such a
45:03
strong internal staff is, is important to be able to support
45:07
people in those kinds of situations.
45:09
And by the way, that that's a real life scenario.
45:11
We actually had that happen at a hospital in Colorado.
45:14
And nurse is fine. She she's, she's great.
45:18
She did great now, but man, that she was scared.
45:21
And, and it was those conversations I had afterwards
45:25
with her that really made a difference.
45:27
And it was conversations this way, it was through Zoom rather
45:30
than in person that OK, how could we have done this
45:33
differently? How could we, you know, or
45:35
whatever. And, and you know, her response
45:37
was I didn't have to fill out anything on the on, on my phone.
45:40
I was so scared. I just had to tell my recruiter
45:44
and she took care of all of that for me.
45:46
And that's when I thought, OK, OK, this is we're on the right
45:49
track here. Yeah.
45:51
No, that's great. You know, one of the other
45:53
things that's really important is a, a business owner obviously
45:56
always got to keep an eye on the bottom line, right?
45:59
What does the the profit and loss look like?
46:01
And as we do that, you know, there's sort of two big levers
46:04
that we can pull. There's how do we increase
46:06
sales, right? And then there's how do we
46:09
decrease expenses. Thinking about those two levers,
46:13
can you think of a particularly creative approach that you've
46:16
taken to one or the other? Yeah, there's we didn't.
46:22
And and in our industry we have a thing called a managed service
46:25
provider or in the outside of that that's like a, that's a
46:29
company like Atlas who will go to a facility and say like we'll
46:33
handle all of your staffing for you and then subcontract out the
46:36
needs that we that we can't fill.
46:40
I don't have that. I don't want to take on that
46:42
responsibility. That's a huge cost upfront for,
46:47
you know, multiple 5% fee, 7% fee, 9% fee, you know, coming
46:52
from the sub, from the sub vendors.
46:54
I'd rather just pay that, that, that, that fee along the way and
46:58
not have all of those headaches that it takes, you know, at
47:02
that, at that level. Steve calls it Switzerland.
47:05
We're we're Switzerland. We don't have an MSP.
47:08
I don't, I don't compete against you.
47:10
The larger, you know, the larger company at any point, but I'm
47:14
going to be there to help you out when, when you have all
47:17
those ER jobs open. And So what is the benefit for
47:21
the companies that go that route?
47:23
The benefit is I never we would never lose a nurse to a
47:26
location. I'll give you an example.
47:28
There are two very large we've talked about already IA and AMN
47:32
American Mobile. So American Mobile's publicly
47:34
traded IA is not and they don't like each other at all.
47:39
They and it is it's very public how much they don't like each
47:42
other. So Aya has no access to the AMN
47:46
hospitals that are that they have contracts out and vice
47:49
versa. So they lose out on each side to
47:53
those chunks of facilities all across the country where I have
47:57
access to both of them and I can staff my nurses in either one of
48:01
them as long as I pay my 5% or 7% or whatever it is back to the
48:06
to the MSP, to Aya or AMN. Oh, OK, I understand now.
48:11
So each of these two companies that don't like each other,
48:15
they've got agreements with their hospitals that say you
48:17
can't let the other big guy in here.
48:19
Correct. Yeah, they are the, they are the
48:21
managed service provider for that hospital.
48:24
And so they can decide. They say, OK, Mr. Hospital,
48:29
we're going to do all of your temporary staffing from, you
48:32
know, from everything from dietitians to everything else.
48:35
And then they come to us and say, OK, you're really good at
48:37
travel nursing, we need you to be a sub vendor for that, for
48:41
this MSP, for this contract right here.
48:43
They will not let the other one in though.
48:46
Gotcha. Rich, I heard you mention that
48:49
you turned 50 this year. I did as well.
48:52
Sounds like we're a couple months apart.
48:54
Congratulations. Thank you.
48:56
Yep, same to you. I've got two boys who are 8 and
48:59
10, and if I've done my homework correctly, I think you may be a
49:03
grandfather. Is that accurate?
49:05
That is correct. Yes, I am.
49:07
OK. Yeah, I've got the Gray in here
49:10
to prove it. So yeah.
49:12
Yes, I am. Yeah.
49:14
And how many grandkids? 22 so far.
49:17
How old? How old are they?
49:19
Let's see, they're four and they four and one, three and one.
49:23
Yeah, yes, they're very, very, very young.
49:26
We were on different trajectories in our 20s it
49:29
sounds like. Yes, well, a different time.
49:32
Scale. I've got AI, got a 15 year old
49:34
upstairs that is asking me, you know, dad, what are we doing
49:37
tonight? Because he wants to go play with
49:39
his friends. So yeah.
49:42
So you're you're still in the midst of that too.
49:44
Absolutely. All right.
49:47
Let me see, I understand one of your bucket list items is to
49:51
visit every Major League Baseball stadium in the country.
49:54
How is that goal coming along? Thanks to the pandemic, not
49:59
great, maybe thanks to make growing a business, not great
50:04
either. I'm a Chicago Cubs fan and so if
50:09
if they go somewhere, if it's if I have an opportunity, I will go
50:12
watch them. So I'm probably 6 or 8 ballparks
50:16
into that right now. So it has not gone well.
50:19
I I need to, I need to refocus on that for sure.
50:22
Well, I'm just a couple hours away from both Cleveland Stadium
50:25
and the Cincinnati Stadium. I I would love to go with you
50:28
sometime if you find yourself out this way.
50:30
You've got a fun triangle there. There's a number within hours of
50:34
each other we could hit. Pittsburgh, Yep.
50:36
Detroit, Yep, Yep, Yep. We could make, we could make a
50:40
week or two out of it. Yep, we lined up right.
50:43
Any particular mentors, books, or experiences that have helped
50:47
shape you or your professional career?
50:50
I one book that I always go back to, I'm a, I'm a beer nerd too.
50:55
Not that I, I enjoy brewing beer, but I really enjoyed the
50:59
craft beer side of of of, of like beer and brewing and that
51:04
type of thing. Early on, I read Jim Cook's book
51:10
about how he started Boston Beer Company and it, it was it, it,
51:16
there were a lot of parallels, I think, to what I was trying to
51:19
do with Atlas at the time. If there was one guy, like I've
51:23
hosted people on the podcast, on my podcast before on Atlas All
51:26
Access, if there was like white whale, there's one guy I could
51:31
talk to, it'd be Jim Cook. And I, I think that guy, there's
51:35
a lot of there's a lot of things similar about us.
51:37
I would love to just ask him questions nonstop for two or
51:41
three hours. I think I would, I would
51:43
probably drive him insane with, with, with the questions.
51:47
But I think the, the guy is not only is, is he really, really
51:50
good at marketing, he's really, really good at people.
51:54
And, and that's what what I find most interesting about him.
52:00
The other thing that I do is I listen to a lot of podcasts
52:03
myself. This American Life is a Chicago
52:07
Public Radio's podcast. Ira Glass is possibly one of the
52:12
best at asking the follow up question that I've ever heard in
52:16
my life. And if I could just, I've
52:19
written him a number of like letters that he's never
52:21
answered. And that's OK.
52:23
But it's always like, I, I can't believe how good you are at
52:27
asking the follow up question, at getting that your, anybody
52:31
can ask the initial question, right?
52:33
Those are easy. But really being able to dig in
52:35
and find that, that, that extra little bit of that follow up
52:39
that is, is, is so key to make his, his interview so much more
52:43
interesting. And that's, that's Ira.
52:46
And I'd, I'd like to meet him at least once and, and you know,
52:49
talk to them in person. So a couple other bucket list
52:51
items there, Ira Glass and Jim Cook.
52:53
And Jim Cook, Yeah, for sure. So just got one more question
52:57
for you, Rich, but before I ask you, I want to do 2 things.
53:00
People listening today. If you like today's content,
53:02
please hit the like share or subscribe button on your
53:04
favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know
53:07
the best way to get in touch with you, Rich.
53:08
You have got so many social media handles.
53:11
You're all over the place. What?
53:12
What's the best way for people to connect?
53:14
LinkedIn, your Facebook are are I'm there, I'm there way more
53:17
than I possibly should be. If you, if you contact us on
53:21
YouTube, if you watch any of our contact content on YouTube, we
53:24
have 2500 plus videos on travel healthcare.
53:29
Some of it's fun, some of it's like me eating stupid food, but
53:33
some of it is really good content too.
53:35
Really good, really informative content about travelling with
53:39
pets or travelling in an RV or taxes for a temporary staff
53:43
worker, that type of thing. It's all right there.
53:46
It would get back to me eventually.
53:47
But yeah, Facebook and LinkedIn for sure.
53:49
Look me up. And so if they look for Rich
53:51
Smith, Atlas, yeah, Atlas Med staff, that'll help.
53:54
Find me. Yeah, absolutely.
53:56
Great. So last question for you, Rich,
53:57
I'm kind of curious to get your take on where you see your
54:00
industry going in the next few years.
54:02
What do you think the big changes are that are coming?
54:05
So during the pandemic, I had a conversation with a with the
54:10
agency owner about the same size as us, as us in a different
54:14
vertical in staffing. And he said something to me that
54:17
that I carry on to this day. He said, it's about time you
54:21
guys caught up to us. You guys meaning healthcare
54:24
staffing. We were we were an afterthought
54:27
in nationwide staffing for a number of years.
54:31
It only took a pandemic for us to catch up.
54:32
And I still think we're, we're a very nice slice of, of that pie.
54:36
You know, even now, even through a, you know, a downturn in our
54:39
industry, I, I still hospitals and larger facilities or, you
54:45
know, you know, multi multi facility systems have realized
54:51
that the way to really handle their staffing is through
54:56
temporary staff, especially if they're in the, you know, if
55:00
they're in a snowbird state or a place like that, that has
55:03
variable, the variable population.
55:08
So they can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
55:10
It it's already it happened during the pandemic.
55:13
They realize how, how they can utilize that now and use us to
55:17
their advantage. If, and that was I said that out
55:21
loud at when I was at an SIA and I said that out loud and the
55:25
hospital came up to us and said that that sounds negative, Like
55:28
you shouldn't have said that. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, if
55:30
you use us to your advantage, it's good for me and it's good
55:35
for you. I don't know how that's a
55:36
negative. That's that is definitely a
55:38
positive. What was their negative spin on
55:41
it? Using that, we're using you to
55:45
to, you know, to their advantage, so.
55:47
Utilizing maybe is a slightly softer word.
55:50
Sure. Yeah, I.
55:52
You're not bothered by it. No college degree here.
55:55
I don't. Yeah.
55:55
Yeah. So there you go.
55:57
Use me however you want. It's good for you.
55:59
It's good for me. I love it Rich.
56:03
I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
56:05
time and your story with us today.
56:07
I really appreciate it. Anything.
56:09
Thank you so much. I'm sorry it took us so long to
56:11
get here, but I'm certainly glad that it did.
56:13
Likewise, this was a lot of fun. But folks, that's a wrap on
56:16
another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
56:19
Thanks for learning with us today.